Westdene went down 3-0 to Haroldeans but still took home three points as some of their players were stopped and handed a three point penalty for speeding. Things weren’t much better on the pitch for the visiting side, though they put up a valiant display in the face of an horrendous injury crisis. Half of their 18 man squad out through injury, meaning that they had to field two players without prior experience in senior 11-a-side football, one of whom had been out injured for a year.

Fraser Saville, the Haroldeans chairman/joint manager, said that considering the depleted squad of his opponents, “they did play very well,” before adding “the score should’ve been 7-0.”

Dave Killey opened the scoring twenty minutes in for Haroldeans, capitalising on goalmouth scramble to lash the ball home inside the area. They were comfortable by half time as promising 16-year-old Avi Rosenthal, who has had trials at Liverpool, latched onto a clever through ball from Zack Goodman, kept his composure and rounded the goalkeeper to make it 2-0.

Westdene had their moments and put up a good defensive performance as well as pushing forward whenever possible to try and reduce the arrears. They were outdone though with 20 minutes left, as a spell of pressure from the home side culminated in a series of inviting corners from Stephen Rubin, one of which finally found Danny Burman, who rose to head home and clinch the three points.

Westdene manager Steve Davis was philosophical after the game, saying that “(we) played very well bearing in mind the difficulties. We play Haroldeans at home and hopefully we’ll have players back and can beat them in the cup.”

They may not have gone home entirely empty handed, but Westdene will be hoping to pick up more points on the pitch in the coming weeks, and will get a quick chance for revenge when they face Haroldeans this Sunday.